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02 May 2011

Cycling Makes You Into A Eunuch- My First Lawsuit Threat (From This Site, That Is)

Many of you have asked, in emails and blog comments, when I will be offering the PR or ER shirts for sale again.

I won't.

This is not due to any personal preference, but rather due to the fact that I conceived those shirts long before I actually had the capital to make them, publicly, and at work. My coworker and I spent countless hours pontificating about different shirt ideas, the favorite of which was the "PR or ER" idea. Thus, we hung out in Vitamin Shoppe in Columbia, SC, talking about the shirts and repeating the slogan (as I frequently had minor gym catastrophes about which we'd laugh) and discussing blog post ideas. This was, incidentally, from February 2009 - December 2009. Being neither jewish nor a lawyer, I saw no need to trademark or copyright "PR or ER", since my friends and I said the phrase often and it never occurred to me that anyone else would copyright it.

How wrong I was. In September of that year, someone did. His location? Lexington, SC. Coincidence? Let's consult Google Maps.

A mere 15 miles away from the birthplace of my genius t-shirt idea.

Amusingly, the coworker with whom I discussed this idea trained at some 24 hour gym in Lexington, making the cycling douche who threatened to sue me seem all that much more suspicious in his actions. Oh yeah- did I mention he's a cyclist?

Thus, I had my t-shirt idea stolen and copyrighted before I could get the scratch together to print the fucking shirts, and have subsequently been threatened with death by unkosher foods (or something along those lines) if I continue to sell them. Luckily, I ran out of shirts about a month and a half prior to getting his email, so his "cease and desist" really became more of a "don't do it again" email.

Before I share our slightly amusing email exchange, allow me to preface them by explaining exactly how this blog came to be. In 2007, friends of mine started asking me to compile the random exercise physiology and nutrition esoterica about which I constantly told them into some sort of a readable format. Given that I am constantly researching and had no simple means of transcribing what I knew, I figured that a blog would be a good way to pass along that knowledge, and would provide a decent starting place for a book. This book, by the way, was to have a self-published run of no more than 20 copies- I wasn't, and am still not, doing any of this for money- I simply do it because I enjoy it. In any event, I finally decided to start it in Feb of 2009, after doing a considerable amount of further research. Shortly thereafter, I got a job at Vitamin Shoppe and started blogging in real earnest, since I lived in Columbia, SC and had virtually nothing to do with myself by work and lift. Having gotten my MBA and been relegated to the economic shitheap that GWB created, I started speculating about different ways to make money, most of which revolved around t-shirt designs and a protein powder based on the amino acid profile of human flesh to be called Cannibal Fuel. Lest that thieving motherfucker wish to steal another idea I've had, it's now recorded for posterity, in public, so he can suck my fucking cock. I had an entire marketing campaign dreamed up for the protein, the first three flavors of which would be White Meat, Dark Meat, and Mulatto (Vanilla, Chocolate, and Cookies and Cream), but at that point my cash reserves were completely tapped from supporting myself on virtually no money for a year, so that idea never achieved fruition. With luck, however, it will one day see the light of day. Anyway, at some point in my verbal daydreams, this skinny motherfucker must've come into the store looking for some idiot carb supplement (THIS JUST IN: GATORADE AND PROTEIN MIXED IS FAR CHEAPER), heard my musings, and run home to trademark them. Frankly, I'm not even sure I came up with the phrase PR or ER, but I am damned sure I did not pick it up from a cyclist- had I done so, I would have bathed in bleach to wash the douche off me after donning the shirt.

In any event, our emails:

If you're shocked by his utter lack of defense, don't be. He has no more business trademarking that phrase than The Donald had copyrighting "You're fired!", but frankly, I'm litigious and apathetic to anything involving lawyers. Were dueling legal, I'd challenge him on principle, but as it's not, you can buy the shirts off him.

In case you're shocked by his lack of retort, don't be: cyclists have astonishingly low test levels, and are often impotent. (Lucia, Colpi, Schwarzer) As such, neither the threat of lawsuit nor failure to defend himself seems surprising.

Just because you are a hard-on doesn't mean you can get one.

Finally, new shirts are in the works with an entirely different design. I'm working on a new logo with more of a death metal theme, and the pic below is a rough sketch of the bulk of the front of the t-shirt design, though it'll be ringed with skulls on the top half, read "Chaos and Pain" above that, and have a banner that reads (and feel free to correct me- my latin is an atrocity) "Per furor vis", "Per odium vi", or "Ira est donum" ("through anger, strength", "through hate, strength" or "anger is a gift") underneath. The back will read "Failure is not an option." This has been held up by a disappearing graphic artist and my continual mind-changing, but it's coming.

The pic looks better in pencil- I copied it into paint and then tried to clean it up in paint.

Addendum:
The following hilarity was brought to my attention. This is an actual screenshot of the guy's site.

I'm looking forward to the new shirt. As for that cyclist and his legal threats, lets hope that he meets the fate deserved of all cyclists......squashed flat by a Mack Truck and left on the side of the road to rot, fly blown and cooked in the mid day sun.

Checked out the website Will posted. That cyclying piece of shit has the audacity to call himself the creator of PR or ER. The shirt he made are pretty lame, obviously a product of a creator with no fucking creativity or imagination.

And what's he doing for merch? Polka dot ER or PR socks? Are you fucking kidding me? That dude's got a skullfull of shitbeans and probably bore down like a miscarrying hobo and dribbled every last dram of stolen creativity and business acumen out of his shriveled ischemic pizzle to think up that shit. Fuck that corpse dewlap right in the neck and keep bringing the pain, Jamie.

Well, we can all take solace in the fact that he truly is a worthless piece of shit. He brags on that website about compiling an epic list of DNFs at Ironman and other races. If he actually believed in "his" motto, he would've run till his legs were bloody stumps and told his "gastrointestinal discomforts" to shut the fuck up point the way out mid-stride.

He has a PhD in Human Performance, that most intellectually challenging of university degrees. His website shows how he then applied that brilliantly honed mind to the simple art of HTML with stunning success. There's really nothing this guy can't achieve as long as it doesn't require rising above piss poor mediocrity.

Did you have anything about "PR or ER" posted on your site prior to his copyright? Because if you did it could be considered prior art and thus not eligible for copyright...at least not by him. If this is the case you may be able to contest his copyright if so wished. But honestly it is a freaking t-shirt and probably not worth the hassle (read: money). It was a douche bag move on his part. I'm not a lawyer, so this isn't legal advise. Just something that you may want to look into.

Craig- Thanks for getting that, haha. I knew someone would eventually. There'll be a fan of either severed heads or skulls impaled on loaded barbells behind him, lest anyone worry. I'm also working on one in which a zombie's rocking a 2 hands anyhow with legions of adoring, buxom zombie broads behind him. Kind of a combination of Porn of the Dead and that famous pic of Arthur Saxon.

Trademark and copyright are two entirely different things. Copyright is the protection of a piece of work (i.e. art, literature, etc.) and is in effect from the moment of creation.

Trademark is the protection of a word, phrase or design (or combination thereof) for the express purpose of marketing a *particular* product or service. It too is in effect from the moment of creation, except that one may register said trademark for easier defense of it in court.

However, this does not prevent other people from using said trademark if it is something common (like a phrase) and bears no relation to the goods or services being marketed. He would be on shaky legal ground to try to prevent the use of a common phrase, especially if it's not being used to market a service similar to his. And on that note, what the hell is he marketing? It looks like a deranged chimp designed his website >:D

In Chrome, click the wrench icon on the browser toolbar. Mac users: If you don't see the wrench icon, go to the menu bar at the top of your screen and click Chrome. Options (Preferences on Mac and Linux; Settings on Chrome OS)> Under the Hood> Content settings in the "Privacy" section> select "Do not show any images."